Body options

Further to the Maxmini torsos shown before, a wealth of body parts options is now floating around:

Maxmini:
 Combat Armour torsos:

Ash Junkers heads:

Greatcoat legs:

Combat armour legs:

Puppetswar:
Anzac heads:

Victoria Miniatures:
Gas masks and goggles:

Kromlech:
Kneeling guardsman legs:

Blight Wheel miniatures:
Regular troop torsos:

Grant's Spectres - legs (various):

Statuesque miniatures:
Resistance fighters - helmeted heads:

Resistance fighters - gasmask heads:

Torso ideas

I have just seen Maxmini's Greatcoat torsos (below). I must possess them.

Who are these frightful savages?

A firm idea of the socio-economic background (oh dear god, what have I become?) of your pretend soldiers is all well and good, but what do the grubby primitives look like?


Digging around, I found a couple of images from an old 'Famous Regiments of the Imperial Guard' article...

Finreht Highlander

Mordant 'Acid Dogs' Sergeant

What I love about these two is that they look like combat soldiers - back-up weapons, grenades, and - most importantly - ammunition. The run-of-the-mill Cadians have what, three magazine pouches? British infantry carry six. They look feral, but also ruthlessly practical - she has a thick vest of some kind (not some eighties Escher-ganger bikini), he's lugging around a respectably sized bergen - this is something that most (even heavily converted) GW minis lack, and what I am endeavouring to create without making the models too 'cluttered'.


What I imagine the characters to look like, and what I manage to make my minis look like, are slowly beginning to converge. Seriously hacked-up Vostroyans with Space Wolf, Marauder Horsemen or more obscurely sourced heads accompany my 'second generation' models pieced together from heavily green-stuffed cadians with Forgeworld bits and all sorts of other odds and ends, who are in turn accompanied by some bulked up and de-eighties-ed Escher gangers. It's taking time, money, and a hell of a lot of effort, but I must admit it's rewarding when it works properly.

Head scratching time

The internet is a wonderful source of inspiration. I have always been a bit uncomfortable with the use of heavy bolters for Imperial Guard, which are just too over-the-top in their heroic scaling, so imagine my joy when I found this genius conversion:

Sold! All I need to do now is:
a) Find enough of the old-style Ork shootas used to make this
b) Retrofit three tanks. Oh joy...


As mentioned earlier, Bungaroo's work is really excellent and worth a sniff - here's an example:

I have shamelessly pilfered his camo-ragging idea. His blog is to be found here. Very creative.

Trucks

I loathe the Chimera chassis. I can't help myself. It looks like a fat man with a small head. Ghastly.


Consequently, I decided that I would like to cobble together some Cargo-8s to use as proxies or using the Vehicle Design Rules of yore.


Mooching around the internet, I found these as a good start-point for inspiration:

This is exactly how I envisaged the Cargo-8 - pintle cannon, soft-topped, and laden down with baggage

The Morris C8 Tractor:

The Scammell Pioneer:

I then took the 'truck' idea and ran with it, since I liked the idea of a semi-motorised army. What about scout trucks of some sort for formational reconnaissance?

A Tamiya 1/35 'Pink Panther' Land Rover:

A Tamiya 1/35 Long-Range Desert Group Chevrolet 30cwt truck:

Others had clearly had similar ideas before me, although I didn't really like their execution:

Too Smurf

Just no.

But then I found Bungaroo's exquisite work on Warseer....

These were a bit more like it, but still not quite right:

So I bought one of the Tamiya 'Pink Panthers' and went to town. I even built a light box, although the results were bitterly disappointing. This is what my prototype looks like at the moment: